GoKawiilTrusted Computing Frequently Asked Questions
- TCPA / Palladium / NGSCB / Longhorn / TCG
Version 1.0
Ross Anderson
Translations into German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Hungarian, Greek, Hebrew and French. This document is released under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Additions since July 2002 are at the foot of this document. See also the Economics and Security Resource Page which gives a lot of background to the issues raised here.
Microsoft has renamed Palladium NGSCB - for `Next Generation Secure Computing Base' and pronounced `enscub', while TCPA has been renamed (somewhat brusquely) as TCG - for the Trusted Computing Group. Meanwhile, opposition is mounting. Expect further twists and turns as the battle develops. And read on ...
1. What are TCPA and Palladium?
TCPA stands for the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, an initiative led by Intel. Their stated goal is `a new computing platform for the next century that will provide for improved trust in the PC platform.' Palladium is software that Microsoft says it plans to incorporate in future versions of Windows; it will build on the TCPA hardware, and will add some extra features. Palladium has recently been renamed NGSCB while TCPA has been renamed TCG; however I'll continue to refer to them here by their original names as they are still more widely used.
2. What does TCPA / Palladium do, in ordinary English?
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